STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police Officer Daniel Keating was patrolling on Staten Island's North Shore on Feb. 23 when, just after 11 p.m, he responded to a call for an unconscious man, possibly overdosing on drugs.

What happened next saved the man's life.

Keating and the two other officers who responded, Yevgeniy Belov and Gregory Smith, had been trained in the use of an anti-overdose nasal spray, and when they arrived, they put that training to quick work.

"The victim was snoring very loudly, what's called a death rattle. Then, we took the package out. You have to put it together," Keating said. "We administered one (dose). The loud snoring, the death rattle went down, but then, after that, he was still unconscious. We gave a second dose.

"After the second dose, he came to, and EMS took over. He survived."

Keating and his fellow officers in the 120th Precinct had been trained last fall as part of an NYPD pilot program that puts the nasal spray in the hands of officers from one precinct in each of the five boroughs.

By the end of May, that training, and kits containing the nasal spray, will be provided to officers in all four of the borough's precincts, District Attorney Daniel Donovan announced as he stood alongside NYPD Commissioner William Bratton and FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano in a press conference Thursday morning in St. George.

Donovan announced he has secured a $50,000 federal grant to expand the pilot program, and pay for about 1,000 naloxone kits. The drug is prescribed as a nasal spray under the brand name Narcan, and is used to reverse the effects of opiates like heroin and oxycodone.

Separately, the FDNY hopes to train all its EMTs and firefighters assigned to engine trucks to use the medicine by July 1, officials said.

FDNY paramedics have been carrying naloxone since the department's merger with EMS in 1996, and EMS had used the medicine for several decades before then. In 2013, officials said, FDNY paramedics used the remedy more than 2,800 times citywide, and through the first four months of 2014, paramedics from FDNY Division 5 on Staten Island have used naloxone more than 80 times.

"It gives the person suffering the overdose the ability to breathe again, reversing the opioid's effect and granting them the vital minutes needed to get them to a hospital," Donovan said. "It's my hope that once an overdose victim can be given a second chance thanks to the life-saving efforts of a police officer, firefighter, paramedic or EMT, that that person will seek treatment for their addiction."

As restrictions on prescription painkillers have tightened, addicts on Staten Island have been turning more and more to heroin. Donovan said his office has prosecuted more heroin-related arrests in recent months.

"The Mexican cartels are pushing it very aggressively," Bratton said, noting the NYPD has refocused its efforts on curbing the heroin trade citywide.

According to data from the city medical examiner's office, officials have identified 37 drug overdose deaths across Staten Island in 2013. That's preliminary data, though -- the number of deaths is likely significantly higher, law enforcement sources said, since not all overdose victims are subject to autopsies.

On Thursday, Donovan, Bratton and Cassano honored seven police officers and six FDNY EMS paramedics for their efforts saving a half-dozen lives with the medication this year.

"When people think of overdoses, usually the first thing people think of is the typical heroin -- the guy with the needle in his arm. But in all honesty, the opiate overdoses are mostly from prescription medications," said paramedic Joseph D'Agosto, who, along with his partner, paramedic Henry Cordero, saved a 60-year-old woman's life April 9. They were responding to a seizure at the corner of Westwood Avenue and Manor Road, in Castleton Corners.

"It was actually an opiate overdose, of Percocet," he said, referring to the prescription painkiller. "She had overdosed on it because the pain, it doesn't go away, they take more, they take more.

"The reason why we gave the Narcan was because she had a prescription for Percocet that only was filled a week ago, but there was already 40 pills missing. ... You had to be a little bit of a detective to figure that out," he recounted. "We both decided, let's give the Narcan, because it's not going to hurt, and it worked."

"What it will do is, it will reverse the effect of an opiate overdose. It prevents the body from absorbing any more of the opiate. The main problem with an opiate is that it stops people from breathing. The clinical term is 'apnea,'" Martinez said. "The brain can only tolerate about four minutes of oxygen deprivation before significant and irreversible brain damage occurs. This in a very timely fashion will stop that process."

Officers can be trained to use the spray in about 15 minutes, he said.

Also honored at the press conference were officers Michael Hull, Dan Ast, Kevin Kouroupos and Kyle Luciano, and paramedics John Heer, Fernando Payamps, John Roddy and Stephen Tortoriello.